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Deliver a Message That Sticks

Whether you’re giving a presentation, writing an email, or leading a meeting, it’s important to communicate your message memorably. By mastering a few strategies based on memory science, you can create messages that linger in the minds of your audience, leaving a lasting impact. Here’s how.

Chunk it up. Your audience can only handle three to four pieces of information at once. Organizing your key points under one central idea will help them retain details and connect the dots.

Make it concrete. Abstract ideas are tough to remember. Use vivid, relatable examples that evoke sensory details to create a mental image your audience won’t forget.

Provide callbacks. Revisit earlier points to strengthen your audience’s recall. Subtle reminders of previous content help reinforce memory and tie new information to existing knowledge.

Spark curiosity. Don’t just deliver answers—pose intriguing questions that highlight knowledge gaps. Curiosity fuels memory, making your message stick.

This tip is adapted from “How to Craft a Memorable Message, According to Science,” by Charan Ranganath

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Strike a Balance Between Micromanaging and Being Too Hands Off

Micromanagers can make employees feel underappreciated and constrained. On the flip side, hands-off managers can leave their reports with too little direction and support. How can you strike the right balance? Here are three signs you’re leaning too far in one direction—and what you can do instead.

You’re focused on how you’re coming across as a leader. Understandably, you want to demonstrate that you’re a capable manager. But in trying to direct how you’re perceived, you may exert too much control or go too easy on your employees. Instead of focusing on your image, concentrate on helping your reports grow. Your leadership will then speak for itself.

You’re constantly redoing your team’s work. Whether you’re redoing it because you don’t want to tell your employees it didn’t meet your standards or because you demand perfection, you’ll diminish your employees’ confidence, trust, and engagement. Instead, clearly communicate project parameters to your employees and align them with your expectations when you first assign the work.

Projects move slowly and people miss deadlines. If everything requires your input or approval, you become a bottleneck. On the other hand, when you’re not there to make key decisions, give guidance, or clear roadblocks, it also slows the process down. Schedule periodic, brief check-ins with your team members to ask questions and listen. You’ll not only help advance the project—you’ll help your employees develop strong judgment so they can grow their skills and confidence.
This tip is adapted from “Are You a Micromanager or Too Hands-Off?” by Carole-Ann Penney
Strike a Balance Between Micromanaging and Being Too Hands Off
Micromanagers can make employees feel underappreciated and constrained. Conversely, hands-off managers can leave their reports with too little direction and support. How can you strike the right balance? Here are three signs you’re leaning too far in one direction—and what you can do instead.

You’re focused on how you’re coming across as a leader. Understandably, you want to demonstrate that you’re a capable manager. But in trying to direct how you’re perceived, you may exert too much control or go too easy on your employees. Instead of focusing on your image, concentrate on helping your reports grow. Your leadership will then speak for itself.

You’re constantly redoing your team’s work. Whether you’re redoing it because you don’t want to tell your employees it didn’t meet your standards or because you demand perfection, you’ll diminish your employees’ confidence, trust, and engagement. Instead, clearly communicate project parameters to your employees and align them with your expectations when you first assign the work.

Projects move slowly and people miss deadlines. If everything requires your input or approval, you become a bottleneck. On the other hand, when you’re not there to make key decisions, give guidance, or clear roadblocks, it also slows the process down. Schedule periodic, brief check-ins with your team members to ask questions and listen. You’ll not only help advance the project—you’ll help your employees develop strong judgment so they can grow their skills and confidence.

This tip is adapted from “Are You a Micromanager or Too Hands-Off?” by Carole-Ann Penney

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Get More Comfortable with Delivering Feedback

Providing feedback to your employees is part of being a manager. These performance conversations should feel productive and set the tone for a positive working relationship with your employee—but preconceived notions can hold you back from giving timely, helpful, and honest feedback. Here are three common misconceptions about delivering feedback and how to overcome them.

Feedback conversations are always long and drawn out. In fact, fast feedback sessions where you simply share the behaviour you’re observing and allow your team members to respond can be just as effective as a lengthy one-on-one. If they’re self-aware and self-motivated, they’ll likely acknowledge their own misstep.

Your feedback has to be perfect. Your employee might see things differently than you do, and you may or may not be “right” the first time. If you’re willing to have a feedback dialogue rather than a monologue, you’ll likely get new information, additional perspectives, and reactions to the feedback you should consider.

With enough preparation, you can manage your employee’s reactions. How an employee responds to your input is based on personal factors. While you should commit to making your part of the conversation as helpful and productive as possible, understand that you can’t control how the recipient will feel. Delaying providing an employee with feedback for fear of upsetting them harms you and your working relationship.

This tip is adapted from “Overcome Your Fear of Giving Feedback,” by Deborah Grayson Riegel

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Today’s Tip

Overcoming Overthinking

Overthinking can take three forms: rumination, overanalysing, and future tripping. Here’s how to spot and handle each one—before they cause you to spiral, stress, and ultimately burn out.

Rumination. This is a mental loop where you dwell on past events, particularly negative or distressing ones. If you tend to fixate on negative feedback, bring up past failures in conversation with others, or you’re overly cautious about work, you might be a ruminator. To diffuse your rumination, set aside 15 to 30 minutes to grapple with these negative thoughts. This will help you compartmentalize and stop yourself from ruminating constantly throughout the day.

Overanalysing. Procrastinating, over-relying on others’ approval, and experiencing difficulty prioritizing are all tendencies of overanalyzers. To break the cycle, shift your aim from “perfect” to “good enough.”

Future tripping. Suppose you spend excessive energy planning for every possible scenario, or you find it hard to celebrate your successes because you’re always thinking about what’s next. In that case, you’re likely a future tripper. To address it, use your forward-looking tendencies to your advantage by projecting yourself into a future where the stress of this moment is behind you.

This tip is adapted from “3 Types of Overthinking—and How to Overcome Them,” by Melody Wilding

Today’s Tip

How to Stop Ruminating

It’s normal to ruminate on stressful situations, whether it’s a nagging problem at work or a personal conflict that’s making you anxious. The good news? Improving your ability to stay present can help you set aside stressors you can’t immediately resolve. Here are some strategies to break the cycle of rumination.

First, anchor yourself. Take a moment to feel the weight of your feet on the floor, then consider: “What am I thinking? What am I feeling in my body right now? What am I doing right now?” Then ask yourself: “Are my thoughts helping me in this moment?”

Then try to take your thoughts less seriously. Rather than allowing negative ideas to feel like dictators in your life, gain some perspective by observing them from a distance and reminding yourself that they’re just thoughts.

Next, don’t fight uncertainty. While accepting uncertainty might mean sitting with some amount of fear, the alternative is to try to micromanage reality, which simply isn’t possible.

Finally, validate yourself and what you’re feeling. Simply legitimising your negative emotions can help diffuse stress and rumination. For example, you might think something like: “I have the right to feel nervous.” Naming an emotion—and giving yourself permission to feel it—can help you move past its initial intensity.

This tip is adapted from “How to Stop Dwelling on Your Stress,” by Jenny Taitz

What Really Engages Employees

Most leaders understand that employee engagement is an important driver of productivity. But what does it really mean—and how can you actually engage the people on your team? It’s all about making them feel seen, heard, and encouraged.

To help your employees feel seen, be proactive about fostering a sense of belonging on your team. This means making sure each person understands the value they bring to the table, and that their presence would be missed if they were absent. Greet people by name, ask them about their lives outside of work, express appreciation for their contributions, and create time and space for friendships and a sense of community to form in the workplace.

Making your employees feel heard entails soliciting their feedback, suggestions, and ideas—even if they’re unconventional. While you can’t expect to implement every suggestion every time, the act of asking and listening alone will promote engagement.

Encouraging your employees requires more than the occasional “good job” or “thank you.” It’s about personalizing each employee’s development and connecting their individual goals to the team’s collective mission.

This tip is adapted from “4 Fundamental Ways to Boost Employee Engagement,” by Dorie Clark and Alexis Redding

Are You Taking Work Too Personally?

Our jobs often offer a sense of purpose, growth, and community. But when we’re invested in our work, it’s easy for us to take interactions, decisions, or feedback personally, which impacts our emotions, self-worth, and identity. If your professional role has become too intertwined with your sense of self, here’s how to put things in perspective.

First, practice de-identifying your feelings with statements like “I am observing this feeling, but I am not this feeling,” or “I can notice this thought without letting it consume me.” By recognizing your reaction, you can create a space between the triggering event and your response.

Next, before you spiral, pause and ask yourself: “What am I interpreting this situation to mean about me?” Through this pattern of interruption, you can examine your assumptions and look at the situation more objectively. You can also challenge yourself to consider alternative explanations for someone’s behaviour or words.

Finally, instead of asking, “Why is this happening to me?” focus on more constructive inquiries. Asking “What can be done?” will shift you into a problem-solving mindset. And asking “What can I learn from this?” will encourage you to extract wisdom from your experiences.

This tip is adapted from “How to Stop Taking Work So Personally,” by Melody Wilding

Avoid These Mistakes When Giving Tough Feedback
When it comes to giving tough feedback, no one does it perfectly. It’s a skill we learn and hone with practice, time, and, yes, by making mistakes. Here are some of the common pitfalls that get in the way and how you can avoid them.
• Not winning trust first. If you give input without first establishing trust, people will have a harder time hearing, accepting, and acting on your feedback. Get to know each of your team members, including their career aspirations and goals. Once you’re clear about how you can support their development, you can begin to link your feedback to their goals.
• Avoiding or delaying. Given the discomfort of sharing feedback with others, it’s not surprising that our first instinct is often to avoid it. Be consistent with feedback sessions and build them into your regular way of working, rather than waiting until there’s an issue to address.
• Overdelivering…at the wrong time. You have to decide if a piece of feedback is worth giving, or if doing so would hurt the situation more than help it. When you receive feedback from your team, remind yourself of their goals and then filter out any recommendations that won’t be useful in helping them improve or reach them.
• Failing to follow up. Feedback is useless if you don’t follow up. After your conversation, check in on your direct reports to see how they’re progressing.
This tip is adapted from “Mistakes First-Time Managers Make When Giving Feedback,” by Brooke Vuckovic

Identify the 5 Types of Problem-Solvers on Your Team

Are you frustrated with your team’s ability to solve problems? If you consistently feel like your team isn’t working together effectively as decision-makers and problem-solvers, it could be because you don’t understand their various problem-solving styles. To set your employees up for success, start by categorizing them into five profiles, recognizing their unique strengths and weaknesses. Then you can pair them accordingly to optimize their performance.
• The adventurer. This employee confidently and optimistically follows their intuition, making decisions quickly—sometimes too quickly.
• The detective. This thorough coworker is methodical, driven by data and evidence. As such, they may undervalue intuition and collaboration.
• The listener. This collaborative and trusting decision-maker works well with their colleagues. However, they often find it difficult to tune into their own opinions or express viewpoints that might be at odds with others.
• The thinker. This is your colleague who thrives on identifying multiple paths and possible outcomes. They’re thoughtful, cautious decision-makers who like to know their options. The downside? Their desire to understand the “why” behind a decision can slow things down.
• The visionary. This creative coworker sees pathways others don’t. They have a big vision but may fall prey to scarcity bias, overvaluing outside-the-box solutions and undervaluing the obvious ones.

This tip is adapted from “Are You Frustrated With Your Team’s Ability to Solve Problems?” by Cheryl Strauss Einhorn

Managing the Emotional Labor of Leadership

Being a leader demands emotional labor—exuding positive, supportive energy to the people who depend on you each day. But what happens when there’s a conflict between how you really feel and the emotions you’re expected to project to your team? How can you walk this authenticity tightrope? Here are a few techniques to try.
• Do an emotional audit. Ask yourself: What exactly am I feeling? Where do I feel it in my body? What’s causing me to feel this way? How is this feeling different from what's expected of me? Mindfully reflecting on your feelings will help you build emotional intelligence and self-awareness—two key traits of good leaders.
• Reappraise the situation. To authentically tap into the positive feelings you’re expected to display, focus on finding legitimate reasons to feel those emotions. If you’re able to locate those reasons, you won’t need to fake the feelings.
• Focus on the big picture. Take a step back and reflect on why your work matters. What impact does it have on your team, customers, or the broader community? Focusing on the people who benefit from your work can be energizing for both you and your team.
• Take time to reconnect and replenish. Seek out support, and be kind to yourself. Connect with people to whom you can express your unfiltered thoughts and feelings—whether it’s your partner, a therapist, or trusted peers. Engaging in activities that enable you to relax and recharge, such as meditation, journaling, art, or nature walks, can also reduce the toll of emotional labor.

This tip is adapted from “When Your Feelings Conflict with Your Leadership Role,” by Dina Denham Smith

Write an Effective Thank You Note After a Job Interview

You’ve just finished an interview for a job you’re really excited about. You know you should send a thank you note to your interviewers, but you’re not sure what to write. Here’s how to stick the landing. First, your email should be short, sincere, and sent within 24 hours of your interview. Address the email to the person who interviewed you and make sure you get their name right—for example, if their name is Christopher and they asked you to call them Chris in the interview, address them as such in your follow-up. If you interviewed with multiple people, it’s a good practice to send a personalized message to each one. In your note, thank the person for their time and consideration. Then, briefly highlight what excites you about the organization and role. You might even call out an aspect of the conversation that was particularly interesting or share a helpful hook to remind them what you spoke about. Sign off by expressing your continued interest in the opportunity and offer to answer any further questions they might have. Be sure to avoid adding unnecessary detail or making any requests. Finally, proofread (more than once!) for any typos or embarrassing grammatical errors.

This tip is adapted from “How to Write a Thank You Email After an Interview,” by Christopher Littlefield

What to Say When Someone Is Rude to You at Work

When someone is rude to you at work, whether it’s a customer, colleague, or even your boss, it can be hard to know if—and how—to respond. In some cases, it might feel too risky to speak up. Other times, it might feel too risky not to. Whether or not to respond is your decision. If you’ve decided that you should, here are three diplomatic ways to do it.

Use “I” statements. For example:
• I felt dismissed by your comment; while that may not have been your intention, that’s how it landed with me.
• I’m hurt by what you just said. I imagine it wasn’t your intent, but that made me uncomfortable.
• I understand why you’re frustrated.

Use “It/That” statements. For example:
• It’s disrespectful to tell people their ideas don’t have merit.
• That comment isn’t helpful to either of us.
• It would be easier for me to help you if we took the heat down in this conversation.

Ask strategic questions. For example:
• Did I hear you correctly? I think you said…
• Can we take a step back for a moment?
• I know we both care about getting this done. Can we do that together? I have some ideas.

This tip is adapted from “How to Respond to a Rude Comment at Work,” by Amy Gallo